(Newser)
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Barack Obama is rising in the polls, but he still seems “exotic”; John McCain is playing the maverick but his maneuvering on the bailout may have been “too cute.” In a week with “all categories upside-down and out the window,” it’s time for both candidates to explain how they think, and why they believe in their respective parties, Peggy Noonan writes in the Wall Street Journal.

It’s true that the country turns to the Dems when the economy is the issue, but in the eyes of America, Obama’s “not your basic Dem, he's his own phenomenon,” Noonan notes. He should offer “a series of speeches on ‘Why I am a Democrat.’” And McCain should do the same for his party. “We know his stands and strategies, but not, really, his philosophy.”